Using ChatGPT in a Writing lesson

Since the birth of the likes of ChatGPT, I've heard many teaching colleagues say that they worry about their students' cheating behaviour in their Writing homework. My solution to this is simple: whenever I meet a new group of learners, I always ask my students to do Writing in the classroom. This enables me to get to know their true ability to write in English, so that I can detect any anomaly later on. In fact, I did have an 18-year-old teenage learner who handed in an (almost) error-free essay in the middle of the year. He eventually admitted that his girlfriend had written it, and I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt on that single occasion.

What about mentioning the elephant in the room? That was what I did last Tuesday. I was teaching a small class of teenagers at Upper-Intermediate level (B2). The lesson was on writing a discursive, or agree-disagree, essay.

After the usual brainstorming, drafting and writing stages, I showed my students the same essay written by ChatGPT. My prompt to the AI programme was:

Can you please* write a 140- to 190-word essay at CEFR level B2? The essay title is 'Being successful in life depends more on a person's ability than on how hard a person tries. Do you agree?' The essay should include these ideas: studies, sport, and your own idea.

* Since ChatGPT is said to be a language model, I insisted on teaching it proper manners!

What my students and I did with the ChatGPT-generated essay was analyse its content. I guided my students on identifying the shortcomings of ChatGPT:

1. The word limit was not respected. ChatGPT gave us a 230-word essay.

2. Both introductory and concluding paragraphs lack coherence. The introduction begins with a sentence about the background topic of 'success'; however, this is followed by a mechanical sentence that goes along the lines of 'this essay will explore the following ideas: studies, sport, and ...' ChatGPT obviously repeated part of my prompt. The concluding paragraph is way off the mark - ChatGPT made no attempt to address the task statement or give a final opinion.

3. Some supporting examples aren't specific enough. For example, ChatGPT mentioned 'ability' when discussing sport but without exemplifying the specific kind of ability.

IH Journal: Issue 51

The latest issue of the International House Journal has been published.

The articles I'm most interested in reading are those on materials writing, using the classroom space, and bilingual education in the context of Poland. On an introspective note, I also enjoyed reading the article titled 'Putting the "International" back into International House'.

Read the IH Journal (Issue 51) here.

Here is the direct link to my article - Developing the Sub-skill of Identifying Reference in Reading.

IELTS preparation: syllabus design

I first started to design IELTS course plans for my school in early 2020. There used to be only ten-hour group courses on Saturday mornings, and the programme would focus on the key aspects of the four IELTS test modules: Listening, Academic Reading, Academic Writing and Speaking.

Came the pandemic and, as we all know, teaching and learning shifted suddenly to the online space. My subsequent task was therefore to re-design the programme of the ten-hour course. The listening and the reading diagnostic tests were moved to the asynchronous learning space as homework. There was no point for the students to turn up and otherwise spend an entire lesson doing those mock tests. Another change was a new addition to the range of courses. Twenty-hour group courses were introduced so that there would be room for giving the students language support towards certain task types. For example, candidates often need to use the narrative tenses to recount personal events in Speaking Part 2. Despite the focus on language in some parts of the course plan, the twenty-hour course was still structured in the same manner as the ten-hour one - training in test techniques and certain key task types in the four IELTS modules.

While the above course plans were overall successful in preparing students for IELTS, they posed certain limitations to individual learners. The most obvious challenge is conflicting learning needs within a class. In Academic Reading, some students were weaker in matching paragraph headings, whereas others needed greater support in table completion. There were also students who didn't really need work on their listening and reading skills, but they could do with intensive practice at writing and speaking. Finally, there was the issue of placing students of mixed language levels, ranging from B1 to C1, in the same class. This was beyond the scope of syllabus design, of course.

Fast forward to 2023, group courses have changed to individual courses. IDP Australia is now offering IELTS online practice (i.e. mock tests) and most students are increasingly getting more competent at listening and reading. In my local context in Italy, almost every student explicitly asks for training in writing and speaking when they come to their IELTS preparation lessons. Consequently, I've found myself embarking on a different design of the syllabus.

Rather than follow a one-size-fits-all approach, I'm able to respond to my students' learning needs in one-to-one settings. Those I've recently taught said they would like to get a higher band score in the Speaking test. Most of them were often hindered by their limited range of vocabulary.

If we look at the questions in published IELTS test papers (e.g. IELTS 17), it is easy to spot a topic-based arrangement in all three parts of the Speaking test. This has informed the way I plan my lessons - I now give my students vocabulary input by topic through gap-fill or matching tasks before we move on to recurring Task-Feedback cycles of test practice. Depending on the band score my students need to achieve, I adjust the range of lexis for any lesson so that somebody aiming for Band 6 won't be inundated by too many complex collocations or idioms targeted at Band 8. On this note, I've found some useful material and resource that enables me to realise my new syllabus design, including vocabulary banks of General English coursebooks and the multi-level English Vocabulary in Use.

For grammar, I use a cross-topic approach so that my students can apply a target structure to their responses. In Speaking Part 1, students can practise using 'used to' and 'would' to talk about habitual actions and states in the past. The same can be done with modality when students speculate about certain topics in Speaking Part 3 or provide solutions to issues in Academic Writing Task 2.

Exam Preparation: 'The truth and nothing but the truth' in IELTS Speaking

I was preparing a student for IELTS Speaking earlier this week. We worked on his spoken fluency and spent a great deal of time expanding his range of productive vocabulary.

At first, I used the techniques of rephrasing and upgrading from Thornbury's Dogme Approach. It seemed to have worked by the middle of the week. This student would always hesitate and search for language before he spoke more fluently on repeating the same task.

However, candidates don't get a second chance in IELTS Speaking test. They must be able to perform well on the spot. So I decided to introduce another technique. Using a topic-based approach, we looked at the vocabulary banks of some Advanced-level coursebooks. With substantial pre-task lexical input, this student should be better able to use a wider range of collocations and a more precise set of vocabulary. Perhaps you can already tell what I'm going to write next by my choice of 'should'.

Finally, I introduced yet a new technique which I had never tried before teaching this student. I asked him to lie to me - give me 'false' responses to a set of Part 1 questions - and he shouldn't say anything true about himself or others. Eureka! This did the trick of liberating his formulation process; he was subsequently able to speak more fluently. I guess it's easier for most people to talk about something they already know but more demanding to invent ideas when they're speaking. The opposite holds true for this student!

Note: Candidates need not say what they honestly think in IELTS Speaking. It is a test of one's language ability.

IH Journal: Issue 50

The IH Journal has been relaunched! The most recent Issue 50 coincided with the 70th anniversary of International House World Organisation.

The articles I'm most interested in reading are those on ChatGPT, Project-Based Learning, and English as a Lingua Franca. I've been thinking about all these topics recently.

As a first-time contributor, I felt like shouting all the way across the channel to Fleet Street for help! Here comes a big thank you - and congratulations - to Chris the journal editor!

Read the IH Journal (Issue 50) here.

Here is the direct link to my article - Developing Word Recognition Sub-skills in Listening.